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My Personal Goals for July

Hey, babes!! Can you believe it’s July already? Summer is flying by and I’m not sure how I feel about it…but there is some good to come from the swift passage of time: I have a newfound energy and determination to better myself. Here are 5 life goals I have set for this month!

1. Improve productivity

The job I have at college allows me to work from home and on my own time…it’s basically a teenager’s dream come true and I love it! However, the flexibility can easily lead to laziness of the Netflix kind. So this month I resolve to set a semi-structured”schedule” where I dedicate a few hours a day to getting work done (and give myself a day or two off as well). Once I get the hang of it, sticking to the plan should be simple and I’ll hopefully feel like a more productive person!

2. Develop and stick to a night routine

Ever since the busy high school days of extracurriculars and homework, I’ve been terrible at making this happen. I can’t remember the last time I regularly fell asleep before 11 p.m., and during the stressful college semesters I consider it a blessing if I’m in bed by midnight. I want to get accustomed to a night routine so I’m prepared when I go back to school. Sleeping is already one of my favorite things to do so this goal shouldn’t be too much of a challenge as long as I commit to it! Plus, studies show that teens who get the same amount of sleep….etc. So finding a night routine that works for me is a win-win situation!

3. Plan for the fall semester

I’m moving into my first “big girl apartment” off campus this year, so I need to start furniture and decor shopping ASAP! Thanks to my constant Pinterest planning this task will be a breeze; it’s just a matter of finding pieces that are inexpensive and still quality…but hey, that’s what the Internet and secondhand stores are good for, right? I also need all of your typical college school supplies: textbooks, notebooks, an agenda, and pens. So yeah, the list is pretty intensive. And to top it all off I have my heart set on studying abroad in the spring (I don’t want to share the location yet but it’s one of my dream travel spots), which means I need to start researching and calculating every last dollar and tidbit of information and stay up to date on program application deadlines. Time to get a move on!

4. Read more books

This has been in the back of my mind for quite a while now. Ever since I learned how to read as a child I’ve had a love for books and the amazing wonders contained on their pages. In elementary and middle school I was a library fiend, and I even received school wide recognition for my bookworm habits! But life seems to get increasingly busy and fast-paced as you grow up, and somewhere along the way I swapped reading for staring at a laptop screen for hours on end in my free time. I have a decent sized “book wish list” saved in my phone notes and this month I want to buy as many of the items as I can, and then some! Knowledge and perspective are two of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves as humans living in this world, and I intend to expand upon them.

5. Be grateful for every experience

I am already appreciative of so many moments in my life, big and small, and I hope I always will be. With all of the exciting little events I have coming up in July (and one super exciting trip) I want to make sure I take a few pictures to capture the memories, but more importantly, I need to unplug and focus on making real memories that are genuine and free of interruption. This is an exercise that will help me with my lifelong goal of mindfulness and benefit me here and now. I am blessed to have good health, loving family and friends, and the very joy of existence itself — these things should be recognized and truly felt in my heart every day, and I will try my best to achieve this level of sensory awareness about my surroundings and experiences. As Eliza Schuyler so fittingly put it in Hamilton, “Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now.”

What are your personal goals for the month of July, or for 2016 as a whole? How do you plan to make them happen? Let me know in the comments!